Routine Revelations

I think John Gruber’s description of the differences between Apple led by Steve Jobs and Tim Cook is right on. Just today I was in a meeting in which the presenter used Apple an example of a lack of innovation, but even if that is true Apple is doing very well. I also like this idea, even if I don’t think the differences between the two are as stark as Gruber is suggesting:

Jobs was driven to improve the way computers work. Cook is driven to improve the way humans live.

We are experiencing above average temperature in southeast Michigan, but it is very pleasant in the morning and evening.

It’s my opinion that too much focus is put on the presidential election. The congressional election is much, much more important because it enables all of what is happening at the presidential level. Imagine, for example, if Democrats had majorities in the House and Senate to impeach AND convict Trump when he was in office. Would we be where we are today? Given the SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity that puts the President above the law that means the only check on any President is Congress. Congress also has say in who are Supreme Court justices, and it is Congress, not the president, who has to act to expand the number of justices on the court. More than anything, we need real (not just one vote or two) Democrat majorities in the House and Senate otherwise little that Harris wants to do for the country can get done.

After reading Jeff Jarvis blog post, What Became Of The Times & Co?, I wonder whether/how USA Today contributes to the problem Jeff describes. One of Jeff’s theories of why The New York Times is in it’s current state of disfunction is self entitlement to the “mass,” which I take to mean all of us in the United States. While The Times has always been “the paper of record,” supposedly for the country, many people, including myself, really didn’t think of a national newspaper until USA Today. Is the attempt to appeal to everyone in the country causing The Times whipsaw of reporting? If it is not the only factor, it surely is a huge contributing factor.

I think too much weight is put on the presidential debates mostly because of the first ones in 1960 between Kennedy and Nixon. Presidential debates didn’t really become a thing until 1976, but the current incarnation are not really debates but rather a form of a cage match of participants in suits. The sole purpose of these debates is to make one look good and their opponent an idiot, and you don’t really hear substance or anything new. Even those 1960 debates are not remembered for substance but rather for how bad Nixon looked on television. You could say that debate was the beginning for performative era of presidential elections that we now bemoan.

BTW, the Cubs did it again, putting up another football score (12-0) on the Pirates. The pitching staff and catcher posted a combined no-hitter. The Cubs are 4.5 games behind the Braves for the final wild card and continue to play with our emotions. An aside, how much worse would the Cubs be without Shota Imanaga?

Tonight the 2024 NFL season kicks off, and with that one of the best time of the year with the MLB pennant races in progress leading up to the World Series while hockey and basketball season begins in October.

The last two weeks sum up the Chicago Cubs 2024 season. Last week the Cubs put up football scores against the Pittsburgh Pirates (18-8, 9-5, 14-10) and gave me hope that they could make a real run for the last MLB playoff wildcard. A week later the Cubs are playing that same Pirates team and have lost 3-5 and 0-5, and that pretty much has me throwing in the towel on their chances. Yes, they are only 4.5 games back and thus mathematically in it, but after the Pirates leave the Yankees come in to Chicago for three games and then the Cubs travel to LA to play the Dodgers, and they are very likely going to be out of the running by the end of that series against the Dodgers. If the Cubs were to make the playoffs, it will be because they are lucky; their inconsistency makes it more probable they will be watching the playoffs

Micro.blog has enabled AI generation of photo alt text and search keyword tagging for uploaded photos. I posted the picture below using the micro.blog app on my phone and found the generation does not occur during the upload from the app, however, I do see the generated results when I look at the photos on the Uploads page. I am sure this generation will get integrated with the apps some time down the road, in the mean time I will have to edit after the fact.

Here is the alt text generated for this picture: “A vibrant carnival scene at night features colorful food stalls, a ferris wheel, and bustling visitors.”

Installed the upgraded version of Fabric on my Macbook.

Today I watched Jason Howell’s video overview of the new Pixel 9 phone. Rather than being an opinionated review, this overview does a good job of showing the features of the new phone, and I particularly like the walkthru Jason does of the AI features.

You see a good demonstration of the dialog a user can have with Gemini Live, it’s impressive if not a little creepy. You also see how Add Me works, the resulting photos Jason show looks a bit obvious to me that they were “edited.” The use case for the screenshots/OCR/AI Pixel feature of the Google Pixel 9 series sounds like how I use archivebox to capture and save web pages that have information that I may need to reference in the future. I probably will use the screenshots feature, but I honestly don’t know whether any of them are attractive/useful enough to compel me to buy the Pixel 9 in order to use them.

I did not know that weather radar decreases detecting events like tornados and lake effect snow, which typically are below 4,500 feet, at about 60 miles. The beam of the radar leaves at a half degree angle and that increases the further it gets away from the radar so that at 120 miles the beam is at 12,000 feet up in the atmosphere. To increase the effectiveness there needs to be more weather radars deployed. The National Weather Service has four radars in Michigan (Pontiac, Grand Rapids, Gaylord, and Marquette), which if you use Radar Scope they are prefixed by the letter K. Radar Scope also shows the smaller radar from Detroit Metro Airport (prefixed by the letter T).

A nice autumn evening in southeast Michigan. In August.

Long elections are all about money, pure and simple. Hopefully one of the lessons to be learned from this upcoming U.S. Presidential election is that they don’t have to be so long. We really need election reform in the U.S. that is intended to make them more efficient, I personally advocate capped public spending. We don’t need billions spent on commercials. I also would like Congress to pass a law that effectively overturns the SCOTUS Citizens United case by declaring spending money is not free speech.

Democrat led state legislatures should be writing laws that hold election officials accountable for not certifying elections for frivolous reasons. I suspect a Republican plan is to flood the system with elections claims no matter whether there is evidence just to create chaos. All of the 2020 claims that went to court lost, and I suspect a good number of them fell in to what I consider frivolous and that will keep happening while there are no consequences.

The Cubs have been playing better since the All Star break and have got themselves to 1 game below .500, making the series against Cleveland that starts tonight important. The Cubs have a favorable schedule for August so they have a chance to put their record well above that .500 mark and make the Wild Card race interesting for their fans. Right now the Cubs are 3 games out of a final Wild Card spot but their are four other teams ahead of them. All the Cubs have to do is keep winning.